Navigant Research Blog

Two and Four-Wheel EV Sharing Programs Growing Rapidly

Ryan Citron — August 8, 2016

Consumers around the world are increasingly searching for new products and services that will enable improved mobility in and around city centers. A key challenge for cities in the 21st century is how larger numbers of people can be incentivized to move away from personal cars for motorized transportation and toward cleaner mobility devices and services.

Shared EV programs reduce vehicle emissions and noise while simultaneously improving mobility in cities—something personal EV ownership cannot achieve on its own. As the EV industry continues to evolve and help address some of these concerns, vendors are experimenting with shared EV programs that utilize an array of vehicle types.

Increasing Interest from Automakers

In early August, BMW announced that it will be expanding its ReachNow carsharing program to cover Portland, Oregon after successfully deploying the service in Seattle, Washington in early 2016. The service attracted more than 13,000 members within its first month of operation. BMW temporarily matched Car2Go’s per-minute prices and eliminated its membership fee for increased competitiveness. The automaker uses a mix of vehicles for the program that includes MINI Coopers and the all-electric BMW i3.

E-PTWs Continue Broad Implementation

In the electric power two-wheel vehicle (e-PTW) market, Bosch is launching an electric scooter (e-scooter) sharing program in Berlin, Germany. The company is using 200 e-scooters from Taiwanese-based company Gogoro, which implemented a battery swapping network business model for its e-scooter deployment in Taipei. The battery swapping model from Gogoro is being adapted to be more of a traditional carshare model in Germany. E-scooter sharing services are expanding quickly across Europe, with iconic cities such as Paris, France and Barcelona, Spain having already implemented similar programs.

Globally, an increasing number of bicycle sharing programs have also been turning toward electric-powered technology as of late. Most recently, it was announced that the largest electric bicycle (e-bike) share program in North America (roughly 200 e-bikes) will be implemented in Baltimore, Maryland in the fall of 2016.

Whether it’s on two wheels or four, the plethora of new on-demand mobility programs sprouting up across the globe indicates that transportation is moving toward a future that is both shared and electric. Vendors looking to capitalize on this rapidly evolving business will need to offer high levels of vehicle accessibility, affordable hourly usage rates, and differentiating product options. For more information on electric mobility devices and their impact on cities, look out for Navigant Research’s upcoming Electric Mobility in Smart Cities report.